Business intelligence systems began largely as decision support systems (DSS) and executive information systems (EIS). Decision support systems (DSS) and executive information systems (EIS) were value added systems that provided additional information from existing on-line transactional processing (OLTP) systems.
As business intelligence systems developed, they integrated decision support system (DSS) functionality with executive information system (EIS) functionality, and added on-line analytical processing (OLAP) tools and management reporting tools. These hybrid business intelligence systems were gradually moved from a main-frame environment to a distributed server/desktop environment to allow greater user access.
More recently, the advent of centralized data warehouses and datamarts have created a dramatic increase in available data waiting to be analyzed, exploited and distributed within an organization. Such data warehouses and datamarts, however, were typically optimized for information delivery rather than transactional processing. As a result, data warehouses and datamarts offered only limited solutions for turning stored data into useful and strategic tactical information. During this same time, business intelligence systems gained prominence by offering sophisticated analysis tools for analyzing large amounts of stored information to support effective planning and decision-making within an organization.
Business intelligence systems display multidimensional and other data views in a graphical user interface. Typically, graphical user interfaces use a single data interface (SDI) to allow related data to be stored and viewed together. Single data interfaces, however, do not support contemporaneously viewing and manipulation of data in separate files. For this, graphical user interfaces employ a multiple data interface (MDI) format. During viewing of disparate files in a multiple data interface (MDI), however, windows are often maximized to provide optimal viewing. This leads to constant opening, closing, and resizing of windows by a user to view the disparate files, which limits the ability of the user to effectively compare and contrast data in the files. In addition, the multiple data interface (MDI) fails to allow related sets of data to be stored and associated with each other.